The big news of this week is that I finally have a companion in the house! Her name is Christine and she’s a dentist from Germany. She’s a genuinely lovely person and she speaks amazing English, and we even have sporadic attempts at German.

Christine did an intensive Spanish course this week, also with Work the World, which meant that after morning Spanish lessons she had various activities in the afternoon.

Making empanadas

On Wednesday afternoon she had a cooking lesson with Jesi, making empanadas and alfajores. I have to admit that her empanadas were not the most attractive of the batch, but the filling was very tasty.

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As I may have mentioned previously, the house I’m staying at is opposite a massive park, called Parque General San Martín. San Martín was an important figure in Latin American independence, who formed an army in Mendoza in 1814, which crossed the Andes and helped liberate Chile. Although I’d been in the park before, I hadn’t really explored it properly, so yesterday I decided to venture deeper inside.

The zoo

In the morning I went into the centre of Mendoza to catch a bus that does a tour of the park. It takes you to the top a hill called Cerro de la Gloria on the far side of the park, giving you a commentary as you go around. On the summit of the hill is an impressive monument to San Martín and his army. There were also excellent views of the surrounding area and of the city. On the way down, we passed the Frank Romero Day Amphitheatre, where the climax of the annual Fiesta Nacional de la Vendimia, or National Grape Harvest Festival is held in March. It’s a big celebration of wine making, and includes a grape blessing ceremony, a big parade, and the election of a festival Queen, chosen from women nominated from the local departments of the province.

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Having somehow managed to spend 3 weeks in Mendoza and not visit a single winery, I finally rectified the situation today with a wine tasting trip in Luján de Cuyo.

The tour consisted of 4 wineries, the first called Achavel Ferrer. It isn’t a typical winery for the area – it has a special fermentation process, using special concrete vats rather than stainless steel ones. This allows them to ferment at higher temperatures for shorter periods of time, as the concrete is less prone to changes in temperature – a temperature rise of only 1°C would kill the yeast. They only produce small amounts of wine, around 200,000 bottles a year (a medium sized winery producing a million).

Halfway through the tour we were joined by another group, of some Americans and French people. They were slightly intimidating as they obviously thought of themselves somewhat as wine connoisseurs and seemed to know all the technical questions to ask the guide. Having said that, they were quite useful later for learning the etiquette involved in the wine tasting itself! We got to try 5 different wines – a basic Malbec, a blended wine, and a top range Malbec of 3 varieties, produced from identical grapes, harvested at the same time, but grown in different soil types at different altitudes. I was surprised at how much this affected the taste!

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